The No Child Left Behind Act is intended to help K-12 schools meet educational standards and grow academically.
However, according to Charles Read, dean of the UW-Madison School of Education, who spoke to UW-Madison students and Madison-area residents Monday night, the act is not up to standards and has experienced growing pains.
According to Read, funding for schools is the primary subject of NCLB.
\It's the biggest part of the bill-to fund schools that are part of Title I districts [that include disadvantaged students],"" Read said.
In 2004, $18.5 billion was authorized to NCLB, but President Bush only requested $12.4 billion, Read said. He was appropriated approximately that amount.
Though the act received bipartisan support, Read said some Democrats are upset with the president's actions.
""The Democrats thought they had an agreement that there would be almost full-funding,"" Read said.
In addition, schools must make Adequate Yearly Progress on state tests or face sanctions.
However, Read said the accuracy of the AYP is uncertain because if a school fails only one AYP standard, it fails the whole test, although there are 12-16 standards. Also, 95 percent of students must be present on the day of the tests, or the school automatically fails.
UW-Madison students attended the first ""Cookies and Milk"" lecture series of the year, to learn more about the topic.
""I don't really know a lot about it,"" said UW-Madison senior Amanda Rowe. ""I heard from some of my friends in Education that this wasn't a good thing so I wanted to learn more about it.""
